Fairfield men can't handle Manhattan

Chris Elsberry

Updated 12:34 am, Sunday, January 5, 2014

RIVERDALE, N.Y. -- As wave after wave of Manhattan defensive pressure washed over the young and inexperienced Fairfield Stags, as each turnover, each missed shot (and no offensive rebound) and each costly foul made the Jaspers' lead grow larger and larger, head coach Sydney Johnson could only stand in front of his bench and watch it happen.

Not that it would have made much difference, but with 11 minutes to play, Johnson had used all five of his timeouts to try to stop a tidal wave of trouble that the Stags simply couldn't escape.

Manhattan placed four players in double figures, forced 18 turnovers and went to the free throw line 38 times, making 29, en route to a 83-57 spanking of Fairfield in front of 1,712 Saturday night at Draddy Gym.

"We're still growing up. You take two steps forward with a nice quality win (at Bucknell) and then you play a couple of good teams (Marist and Manhattan), and it's been really rough," Johnson said. "We've got to figure it out."

Fairfield fell to 3-11, losing its third of its last four. The Stags fell to 0-4 in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference, sharing the cellar with St. Peter's (4-9), whom they play on Wednesday at the Webster Bank Arena.

The Jaspers, meanwhile, won their eighth straight game to improve to 11-2 overall and 4-0 in the MAAC. George Beamon scored 19 points to lead the way. Rich Williams had 14, Shane Richards added 13 and Rhamel Brown had 12. Manhattan is off to its best start since the 2001-02 season and is ranked fifth in the latest Collegeinsider.com Mid-Major Top 25 poll.

"They're a very good team," Johnson said of Manhattan. "Pretty much everyone picked Manhattan to be at or near the top of the MAAC in preseason. At some point, we have to make some plays and not look for help. We have to get better and grow up."

It took barely 10 minutes for the Jaspers to open a double-digit lead (24-14), but the Stags cut the gap to six (24-18) before a 16-6 Manhattan run opened the margin to 40-26. It was 43-28 Jaspers at the half.

But the Stags didn't quit. At least Maurice Barrow didn't. The senior forward scored 15 of his 17 points in the second half as Fairfield fought to stay within striking distance before a 17-2 Manhattan run pushed the lead to 70-41 with 6:36 to play.

"We just have to keep playing through our adversity," Barrow said. "That's all we can do. When we're down, we have to be mentally tough, but we're not at that point yet."

The 3-11 start matches the 1991-92 squad's beginning. That team finished 8-20.

"This is a tough stretch, probably the toughest I've ever been through," Barrow said. "But we've still got a lot of games to go. We have to overcome this adversity and if we can do that, I think that will solve a lot of our problems."

The start of the game was delayed a half hour because the Fairfield bus got caught in traffic after a crash of a small plane on the Major Deegan Expressway in Yonkers, N.Y.